For those who have interviewed at UBMC

[history _ice]

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I have an interview on 2/18 and wanted to know what kind of questions they ask and whether you are interviewed by a committee or one person. Also considering that i had a very low MCAT score , any advise on what i should tell them when they bring up the topic.



Thanx,
ICE

 

[Kashue]

Originally posted by history _ice
I have an interview on 2/18 and wanted to know what kind of questions they ask and whether you are interviewed by a committee or one person. Also considering that i had a very low MCAT score , any advise on what i should tell them when they bring up the topic.



Thanx,
ICE

UBMC?

 

[history _ice]

University at Buffalo school of medicine...sorry for the confusion in the mistake in the abbr.

 

[ek6]

The medical school interview feedback forum has a lot of good info on this.

I'm replying because this is probably the one school that I felt asked a lot of "prepared" questions that were meant to pry into interviewees more. My first interviewer was hardcore. He even opened up by asking me what I got on my SAT's...loser. Anyway, they all have prepared questions that they are supposed to ask and a lot of them were situational. For instance:
1. name a situation where you had to go out of your way to help someone.
2. name a situation where you had to deliver bad news to somebody
3. name a situation where someone in a group you were in acted immorally (i.e. how would you react to a classmate cheating?)
This guy at the end of my interview even pulled out a couple of newspaper articles and asked me to react to them. One was about how there was a problem with air-conditioning or something in a prison and how inmates as a result, were suffering from heat exhaustion. Another question he asked (I'm being totally serious) is how I would go about trying to figure out how many gas stations there were in the country (someone also mentioned this question in the UB medical school interview feedback forum...as proof This was my first interviewer only though. My second one was totally easy - she just sat down, talked about my EC's, my research - overall, she was just very cordial and friendly. Honestly, I think I had two ends of the extreme in terms of my two interviewers there.

I would definitely expect to get some of those situational questions though. I think my first interviewer was probably the toughest guy they had there so don't generalize and think they're all going to be like that. However, if you want to prepare for some of those questions I mentioned above, it definitely wouldn't hurt. All it takes is a few minutes to think of some good examples. Good luck - I thought it was a pretty nice school - although a little too far away for me.

 

[Kashue]

You have 2 interviews for the MD. My interviewer asked me some questions from a page he was given. So, they have a set of standard questions they ask you. Look over the interview feedback.

Buffalo's MCAT average is 28.5? If you're a point or two below, I wouldn't worry so much. I assume they take an equal no. of 26/27's as they do 30, 31's.

 

[hmno82]

I was interviewed there on September 10th and have a lower than avg MCAT score for their school (27). They DID ask about it (both interviewers), but said that they take people with this type of score often. Unfortunately, what they didn't say was that those students usually come off of the waitlist, which is what I'm on. Don't go in thinking that you're interviewing for a spot on the waitlist, but make sure you have a damn good reason for the poor MCAT. The worst thing to say is "Im just a poor standardized test taker"... death to anyone needing to pass standardized tests throughout their career (the Dean of Upstate told me that a few years ago). You have many outstanding qualities you can focus on, otherwise you wouldn't be asked for an interview. Best of luck and let us know how it went!